GDOM: An Immersive Experience of Intangible Heritage through Spatial Storytelling

This paper presents the design, development and evaluation of GDOM (Geelong Digital Outdoor Museum) application that integrates intangible heritage stories into places of public significance through a 3D virtual immersive environment. The project makes an important contribution to community-centred intangible heritage, while bridging the gap between theory and practice of location-based, non-linear storytelling. Research by Design methodology has been adopted to integrate highly cross-disciplinary insights into the creation, reproduction and evaluation of a tangible application. A web-based 360° panoramic image viewer platform has been utilised to design and curate an interactive heritage experience, by spatially linking stories (content) to specific locations. The key innovation is the location-based, non-linear and spatial storytelling inside a 3D immersive virtual space where users have the opportunity to interact with intangible heritage stories. GDOM application opened up new opportunities to connect people with intangible heritage to facilitate new forms of environmental knowing, spatial and cultural understanding, and the creation of a sense of place. An in-depth evaluation of GDOM, with both expert and non-expert user groups, confirmed the GDOM application as an effective tool to experience intangible heritage to facilitate better understanding of places compared to a physical experience of heritage in a museum. Potential context of application with immediate benefits have been reported as education and cultural tourism sectors.